Home Affairs withdraws asylum directive after 24 vehicles torched in Durban and Soweto
The directive was issued to manage a court ruling that opened asylum processing to people who entered the country illegally. Its withdrawal follows two days of unrest.
The Department of Home Affairs has withdrawn a directive setting out how asylum applications should be processed, after days of unrest in Durban and Soweto in which 24 vehicles were torched and shops were looted.
The department had issued the directive in response to a court judgment. The court ruled that asylum seekers could not be denied access to South Africa’s asylum system solely on procedural grounds, such as entering the country illegally. The department said its offices were quickly overwhelmed by the volume of applications, placing its officers at serious risk.
As Deutsche Welle reported on 8 October, the unrest began in Durban, where a group demanded that a refugee centre stop processing asylum applications. Vehicles were overturned and set on fire, and foreign-owned shops were looted. On Thursday the protests spread to Soweto, where residents clashed with foreign shop owners and gunshots were heard, according to the broadcaster Newzroom Afrika. Fourteen cars were torched in Durban and ten in Soweto.
Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Superintendent Xolani Fihla told SABC television that no injuries had been reported at that stage. “It’s reported that there were clashes between foreign nationals in the area and South African nationals,” he said.
The court ruling at the centre of the dispute found certain provisions of the government’s refugee policy unconstitutional. In the weeks that followed, hundreds of people, reportedly including some who do not qualify for asylum, went to government refugee centres. On Wednesday the government stressed that the judgment “does not grant refugee status or permanent residence automatically to anyone who enters South Africa.”
South Africa has seen months of anti-illegal-immigration protests this year. Groups have demanded that undocumented foreign nationals leave by 30 June. Thousands of people have fled the country, and some have been repatriated by their own governments.
South Africa remains the largest economy in Africa and continues to attract migrants, even as about a third of the population is unemployed. Migrants are often blamed for taking jobs, fuelling crime and straining public services. Social scientists have said those accusations are not supported by evidence.
No group or individual may enforce immigration law. That authority belongs to the state. A blockade that denies a patient treatment, or a crowd that decides who may trade, is unlawful. The conduct seen in Durban and Soweto falls under the criminal law, including arson, public violence, intimidation and unlawful deprivation of liberty, and the South African Police Service is responsible for investigating it.
Source: Deutsche Welle, South Africa pulls asylum directive after violent protests
